you work as a notary They are carrying out a commercial activity. Although spanish notaries They are public officials, “carrying out an economic activity (…)”. Pronounced like this Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). According to the decision, this group “serves customers services for a fee and under competitive conditions. For this reason, they cannot be considered as public administration authorities.”
In this context, European justice considers: change of notary owner “This situation should be compared to a change of employer, although Spanish notaries acquire ownership of a notary office after being appointed by the State, a situation that the European directive protects workers by protecting their rights.” As a result, since this is a business activity, demployee rights and seniority In case of transfer of the company, they will fall under the European directive on the protection of workers’ rights.
This decision came after four workers. A notary office in Madrid They will file a lawsuit before a judge in that city. declare his dismissal illegalBy the new president of the notary. According to the Madrid judge, notaries who have repeatedly occupied this position They employed workers continuously. The new notary justified the dismissals because the workers had not passed their probationary period.
ancient ages
The workers also asked the Madrid judge to calculate their seniority from the day they started working at the notary. On the other hand, the nominal notary evaluated that their seniority started to be counted only from the date of signing the employment contracts with the company.
workers.
Following this case, the Madrid judge asked the CJEU whether, given the characteristics of the notary profession in Spain, the directive on the protection of workers’ rights in case of transfer of companies was applicable to this situation.
On the other hand, changing the owner does not mean changing the identity of the notary. According to the decision, the preservation of this identity constitutes the decisive criterion in determining the existence of the transmission within the meaning of the directive.
CJEU, notary activity It basically depends on your effortThus, if the new owner takes over a significant part of the staff, he will be able to maintain his identity after the transfer and thus continue his notary activities.
According to the Court of Justice, this appears to be the case in the present case as the new notary carries out the same activities as his predecessor and takes over a significant part of the staff employed by his predecessor. At the same time, he took over the financial resources and buildings of the notary and thus became the custodian of the documents kept there. In the decision, the CJEU states that it is up to the Madrid judge to verify whether this is indeed the case.